So um, what's the point of having a skill based ladder if you are going to give points away? Isn't the ratings distortion bad enough with all the mulitiple account spamming? Do you truly want to have a meaningless ladder where some guy like Clauber will register his 47 multiple personalities and have a higher rating than someone with true GM skills?

Eclectico , you are missing the point here,
i understand fully what you are saying , and all registered accounts will be checked by myself,and any containing the same IP will NOT be awarded points i promise that.

the whole point of this , is to bring new players to the forum, and then thus creating a community, and better turnout for the tournaments._________________

As for you ranting and raving about free tournament entry, lets not get ahead of ourselves here. As far as I am concerned anyone with over 10k can enter a tourney, and that isn't hard to do at all.

Bill will insure no one abuses the system, and besides that its time you guys start having a bit more faith in people. Furthermore, look at the benefits v.s. the bad.

Benefits

More active forum users
More tourney players (which could lead to even more tourneys)
Less players leaving and more coming in
Players can get points for being a good community member
More advertising

Disadvantages

People might abuse the opportunity
People might get free entry into tournament (??? why the long face eclectico)

Clearly this is just people with high points complaining about lowbies having a chance to get some points without having to play a game. I think it is well earned points though as it is contributing to the community._________________If you're in a war, instead of throwing a hand grenade at the enemy, throw one of those small pumpkins. Maybe it'll make everyone think how stupid war is, and while they are thinking, you can throw a real grenade at them.

Clearly this is just people with high points complaining about lowbies having a chance to get some points without having to play a game. I think it is well earned points though as it is contributing to the community.

Please don't be offended, but you really missed the gist of my post because you came into the conversation a bit late. I honestly couldn't care if brand new players get a free 1000 points.

My post was made when Bill's original statement said 1-9 referrals 1500 each and 10-19 referrals 3000 each. I interpeted this to mean that a player could earn 3000x19 = 57,000 points. So suddenly someone can jump from being a 15k average player to being an 72k expert!

Given that we already have a problem with an inflated ladder due to point traders, etc.. the LAST THING we need is MORE artificial inflation. Bill has since changed his post so that now the most someone can get from referrals is 9x1500 = 13,500. This is much better.

But, it still bothers my "competetive spirit". I play tournament chess, I play poker for real money, I was a strategy gaming website staff member for years. Ratings exist for competetive players to evaluate how well they are improving. If a ratings system is not accurate... it destroys all the honor, glory, and satisfaction of achieving a higher rating.

What would the world think of Gary Kasparov if we knew he earned a good chunk of his rating points for doing things unrelated to his chess skill?

You could argue that i'm missing the point because i'm too competetive. But why have a ladder at all then? If people want a friendly game, they can play unrated. This isn't isn't an MMORPG... you don't get points just for playing. This is a STRATEGY GAME... you should earn a rating by learning to play better than your opponents.

The way I look at is, if you have an account at 100k, you are a highly honored player, but if you have 13k or 18k or even 30k... you are either just an average player OR you have a new account that you are trying to get up. If a bunch of average players are referring people and getting 13k added to their account, then all that is resulting from it is an average player having 26k VS 13k, while this community gets built up. If you have 100k and don't like the inflation of points, the best way to fix that is beat the average players. Show em' whose boss. If anything this should INSTILL competitive drives with in the higher ranking players, and therefore scare the crap out of lower ranking players._________________If you're in a war, instead of throwing a hand grenade at the enemy, throw one of those small pumpkins. Maybe it'll make everyone think how stupid war is, and while they are thinking, you can throw a real grenade at them.